uh... there's a new poll out anitha about the n_s_a_ surveillance
i don't know and what order to present the information let me just say that i'm
gonna give you the information that's in the poll
and then i will let you know ahead of time that there were a lot of people you
knowing me who questioned the validity
of this poll
and we can't have a conversation the polls frumpy research center
for the people and the press the poll is dated yesterday june tenth twenty
thirteen and the poll says what
when asking americans about
now that we know
that this is going on in terms of the of surveillance from the n_s_a_ these
tie-ins with private compra companies like verizon
how do you feel about it
and the poll says that fifty six percent of americans a majority
that the n_s_a_ program which tracks telephone records of millions of
americans is an acceptable way for the government to investigate terrorism and
we have a minority i'll be at a substantial minority of forty one
percent but says it is on acceptable
this was conducted between arjun six and nine among of thousand adults
it found no indications that the revelations of the government's
collection of phone records in internet data
have altered the public's view
about this tradeoff that we often talk about between investigating terrorism
and protecting personal privacy sixty two percent say it's more important for
the federal government to investigate possible terrorist threats even if it
does intrude on personal privacy now if you look amongst younger people lewis
months younger people as much closer it's fifty one say yes this is ok forty
five percent say
uh... you know that attitude that it is intruding on uh...
on privacy to an extent that is not acceptable now
what are the possible problems with the study is this is this a study which we
can critique in terms of how it was conducted if you look at the data
fifty two percent of the respondents say that they were either following the
story not at bol closely or not to closely that would say okay
you've got sixty percent of americans who say that this is ok but half of the
respondents don't really know what's going on in may have been kind of push
polled
into entering one way or another
by the by the polling agency
however
the numbers really haven't changed much over time so even taking that into
consideration is a roughly the same numbers we've had for years what do you
think
it doesn't surprise me of course that
so many people stop all the issue is as closely as they shed but then again
how many
important small details are there when someone basically tells you that the
government can intercept any communication and any time
uh...
the appetite
i don't know i'm mean i i i wanna ask the question can we even live
in a country like this with a population like this a society government
technology like this and not have this happening is that even possible that's a
question that blah blah guess we don't really have the answer to it
i would say this about uh...
but the conspiracies that the poll was doctored to create the false perception
that there is approval for this type of thing to kind of make it not the scandal
which is
if this is a fake poll if the data has been faked
you would think that that would include more convincing data about how closely
people are following the story don't you think that's on this is always that the
the the thing with these conspiracy theories it's always are poorly done
fake study why cant couldn't it just had been faked
properly
i think that it's a pretty poor
argument uh... i think that what's going on his own people disagree with the poll
results
they question its validity and when they agree with that they just mention a
allright as evidence i think this is another example i don't think we need to
question this pull any more than we question any other pple here's my my
quest my main issues around the stray around this issue
number one is the problem the surveillance or is the problem of not
knowing about the surveillance in other words
how do americans view
not knowing about whether they are being surveilled in this way or not my s my
sumption would be
that you would have some amount of people who would say it is wrong for the
government to do this type of surveillance and then you would have
more people who would say
i'm not against the surveillance pr
per se but i'm against not knowing about this if we all know that the government
has access to the stuff i am less against at that doesn't make it any
better doesn't make it any worse doesn't make it any more legal or less legal
but i had a feeling that public opinion would follow along those lines yeah i
mean i i think
i think a lot of people do
fall into the uh...
the school of thought that if i'm not doing anything wrong
i don't really care what's going on
uh...
and to be honest
in a way i'm kind of one of those people
uh...
so so what r only way map
i mean if this actually does
bombings attacks is any with yours
uh...
to an extent
yeah arguably overhears that there's a line of i mean obviously there's a line
that i will drive one point or another here's the problem habitat argument
if you look and we looked at these numbers yesterday and they were here
will hear back to camping trips and
yesterday i looked at the numbers where over the last
but during the period nineteen ninety nine to twenty ten we had about although
low birth three thousand people die in the u_s_ because of terrorist attacks
right
and we had i don't remember exactly the numbers a hundred and fifty thousand
people die from uh...
diabetes and then there was like the tens of thousands of people dying from
gun violence
and tens of thousands of people dying from drunk driving
so on and so forth the question is given the relative impact of people dying from
terrorist activities to all other types of
presumably preventable of the ways of dying
does it make sense to lose this a-level of privacy that's really the question so
when people say what you're saying willis
hey if it's preventing terror i'm okay with it
we need to go also conceptualized how many people are dying from terror
versus how many people are dying from other things
and how
how invasive
are the remedies to those other problems that i did a very won't have love yeah i
mean i it may be impossible to know this
but there's also the statistic
how many lives were saved
the surveillance that much more difficult to know because it's
classification work on you did it with the french there's there's both the
problems that i have both with what you were saying and justice general idea
about surveillance acknowledges make a a general point about a surveillance which
is that most people are really thinking about this in a way that i would
consider to be reasonable
meaning that there really only thinking about the fourth amendment and there
idea of what privacy is or should be
and the reality is is that we don't really have access to the information
that would let us know whether the benefits
of the surveillance have led to
decreased acts of terrorism
and so we can really make the right call here it's a question of whether we have
the knowledge steven
think about this reasonably i think most people are just they have a knee-jerk
reaction they say we shouldn't be the government shouldn't be doing this
missile reality is that it's a little bit more companies you trust that
the government which is the one that's you've got to make the call break they
say
we believe
that based on how effective this is a preventing terror
and that it is worth it do you trust that they'll make the right decision
it's not a question of trust you're turning around what i said and making it
seem like what i'm saying
is that we should be in the dark and let the bureaucrats and the damn politicians
decide that's not what i'm saying what i'm saying
we you right now when you just hear this headline right you see although the
government an essay is has all of our phone records
and you make a you you get you can't make a judgment on it they finally that
you're not really making
in reasonable position think about whether
you know if you were
or working for the n_s_a_ and you're trying to prevent terrorist attack
and you can you know
five minutes asked her
there is an incident or even the two days before it you have access to these
records and you can more quickly then get a court order and then find the
person maybe you if you were that employ you would think you know this is pretty
reasonable like we can actually do a lot of good
so all i'm saying is that allot of people aren't thinking about this
critically they're thinking about it
in in this sort of general narrative where the government is big brother and
it's just all that
then how much i can add to that and that's that there's there's a larger
there